Ten90 Solutions LLC

...that in the efforts to counter my tendency to use intemperate language, to be family-friendly,  to curb a certain harshness,  I may not be making myself perfectly clear..

I feel that might have happened in my post "Noise and Signal."  So...just to be perfectly clear, regarding the derailment of Amtrak train 501 near Dupont, Washington: 

I think the proliferation of programs and procedures intended to "check-off" safety concerns were "office-centric," if you catch my drift, and unintentionally created an atmosphere that minimized the single most important component of safe train operations-- training and supervision of operating employees by operating officer. 

I think that no railroad, host or tenant, should ever allow the "cherry run" (there goes the family friendly) of a passsenger service to leave its initial station without a road foreman of engines in the cab of the locomotive; without a road foreman or foremen assigned to that train from start to finish of the run. 

In fact, I think you keep road foremen assigned to that service until they have ridden with every engineer operating a revenue train. 

I hope I've been clear. 

dms

I even sound sweeter, when I talk....

--Etta James